I’m so sick of ignorant and pathetic assholes (like this guy with Focus on the Family) spreading blatantly false and irrational arguments about the so-called "debate" on global warming. It’s time for people to wake up. The ballots are in. You lost. There is not, nor was there ever a debate. If you still are hanging onto the Right’s irresponsible and fabricated view of global warming, please read this. The article (and it was written in 2004...I can’t believe we’re still talking about this) follows one of the first reports by the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPC) about climate change consensus.
"In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].”
For those of you who think that the IPC, Science Magazine, and every other scientist ever mentioned by a crazy liberal is on crack, they surveyed 928 papers on “climate change” with the following results:
"The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."
But, because my dad sent me an email with a link to that dumbass above’s home video about how global warming is a hoax with the message, “It would be great if you could answer these 5 questions,” I’m going to go ahead and try to answer the five questions.
1. The question was something about renting a condo in Siberia...I’m not sure what the hell he’s talking about there, but the claim was that since the North Pole has melted before, there’s no problem if it melts again.
This is probably the most ridiculous argument I’ve heard from anyone. You know what? We dropped an atomic bomb on a country before, why not do it again??? Well the problem is that MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE!!!!!!! If Greenland alone melted (a glacier much smaller than the North Pole) as has been predicted in the next fifty years, (don’t forget to look at the map of Florida), Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, and the entire Florida Coastal line would be eliminated. Think about how many would die or be displaced. And that’s in one state, in one country. Now, multiply that by every coastal city in the world. We’re talking about New Orleans times a million. But, go ahead and just write the science off as doom and gloom hogwash. Listen to this dude so you can buy hummer, crank your AC down to 60, and vote for a Republican. Ice caps melt all the time...no big deal.
2. Global temperature has always gone up and down, why should we assume that the temperature in 1900 was normal? Why should we assume that the era in which we live is the optimal temperature for the planet to thrive?
Yes, global temperature has always gone up and down, but what about when it just goes up? We have witnessed unprecedented rises in temperature in the past one hundred years. This dude’s home video is even willing to admit that. One of the main sources of concern is that this change in temperature directly coincides with the rise and fall of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We are using alarmingly more amounts of CO2 every year and it’s not difficult to predict that the temperature will rise along with it. Here are a few graphs that highlight the increase in both temperature and carbon dioxide.
As to the second question, I actually agree with him. The planet will definitely thrive as a result of temperature rises, but that will be because humans will be gone. After all, “humans are responsible for the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs.” The world thrived without the dinosaurs, it will definitely thrive without us.
3. What are the odds that NBC will ever an unbiased report on global warming?
The problem with the so-called unbiased reporting going on with global warming is that there is no sound scientific other side. As they put it in the previously mentioned Science Magazine article and backed up by the analysis of 928 peer reviewed scientific journal articles, “politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.” But, once again, the administration, most of the Republican Party, and big corporations (the oil and coal companies in particular) are not satisfied just having the news (or scientific consensus) reported. They have to create their own news. News that fits suits their bottom line and gets them rich. And they do this by paying their own think tanks to create the idea that there is a debate when there is no debate (or by hiring former Exxon executives to run the EPA).
4. Weathermen can’t even predict when it’s going to rain, how can we possibly predict the global climate 50-100 years in the future?
The climate and a weather forecast are two different things. This is simple faulty logic. It’s like saying that there is no way the Cardinals are going to win a World Series because the Blues can never get it done in the playoffs. When this is one of your five big questions about global warming, you just haven’t done your homework. With that said, we rely on predictions from scientists to evacuate cities during all natural disasters. These people save hundreds of thousands of lives. Even though they aren’t one hundred percent sure that a storm is coming, they’ll let us know when to get the hell out. Climatologists are now telling us that the storm is coming and we need to do something about it now. Sure, we could ignore them and call them alarmists like we did when Katrina was coming, but we all know how that turned out.
5. Why don’t advocates of the environment ride a bike and live in a tent?
It’s true that many politicians and advocates of drastic changes in our reliance on carbon rich fossil fuels contribute greatly to the problem. This is true of every American. It is also true that carbon offsets are not the answer to this problem (even though offsets go far to advance renewable energy programs, they’re really just a way for lazy people to deflect guilt and shitty companies to give the illusion of being more green). In most environmental circles it is well known that Al Gore is sugar-coating the situation because he is afraid people will give up when they realize how drastic the situation is. Most experts believe that small changes are not enough. We don’t have to go as far as living in tents but as a culture, we have to make some tremendous transformations in our personal and political lives if we are going to prevent the catastrophic tragedies that scientists are predicting could occur in less than fifty years.
Just buying an SUV that gets 25 MPG instead of 15 isn’t enough. We need to work on building communities that are more bike and pedestrian friendly, using public transportation, living closer to where we work, shopping locally, closing feedlots, conserving energy, replacing regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones, regulating carbon emissions in coal plants and eventually replacing all fossil fuels with renewable energy, and passing laws that drastically increase the minimum fuel economy in cars and that require big businesses to completely stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere. And that’s just a start. The most important thing that anyone can do is to simply pay attention. Stop believing the bullshit myths and open your eyes to the world you are leaving to your kids and grandkids. You fucked the world up enough people, start doing your part.
Links:
The most terrifying trend in all of this is not the drying up of lakes and scarcity of fresh water, it’s not even the rise in sea level and the catastrophic global diaspora that would follow; it is the changes that are projected in the ocean currents if the Arctic glaciers continue to melt. The last time the ocean currents dramatically shifted we headed into an ICE AGE. I don’t think anyone wants that. This article is straight from NASA (and it was written in 2004…once again, I can’t believe we’re still talking about this). Now that’s freaking scary.
For the first time EVER, there’s a hole in the ice at the North Pole large enough for ships to safely travel across the tip of the earth. Not good.
Big surprise, Bush and Cheney have lied to us the past six years about climate change. Also check out the people they gave jobs to and where those guys worked after they were done in the government. A revolving door of assholes revealed (actually anyone could have looked it up) by Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone.
